1. General Notion of Wisdom In the first book of the Metaphysics 2 Aristotle recounts the most commonly accepted notions regarding the qualities of philosophical wisdom. Thus, wisdom is thought to be the most universal (i.e. the most inclusive) science, and the most difficult, and the most deserving of being taught. Aristotle does not cast these notions aside, but to him the truest characteristic of wisdom is this: it is science of first causes and first principles. Pursuing this thought, he observes that man has an inborn curiosity about things, a natural desire to know their causes, and this desire is not satisfied until the ultimate cause is reached, beyond which no other is to be found and which must therefore be selfsufficing. Whatever science delivers the ultimate explanations, which is to say the ultimate or first causes, that science is wisdom. And since metaphysics does this, it is rightfully called wisdom.
2. The Several Kinds of Wisdom a) The notion of wisdom is as little the exclusive property of Aristotelianism as it is of Christianity. Every philosophical system worthy of the name purports to be wisdom. Yet there are wide differences within philosophical wisdom itself, depending on the goal pursued and the means and method employed.3
In earliest Greek usage the word "wisdom" (sophia) had a decidedly utilitarian connotation, being synonymous with skill or excellence in any craft. So, Polycleitus was wise because of his exceptional competence as sculptor. But "sophia" also meant a certain mastery in the conduct of one's life. In this superior sense Socrates speaks of it. Wise, he said, is he who knowing himself well, knows how to govern himself truly. Plato, making the moral heritage of Socrates his own, carried it a step further, acclaiming wisdom the art of governing, by the norms of justice and prudence, not merely oneself but the whole city or state. Philosopher of the Ideas, Plato went on to discover new paths to wisdom for the human soul. By its intellectual element called Nous, this soul was said to be in communication with the true realities, those same intelligible forms or Ideas pinnacled by the Good, highest of them all. Wisdom, by this stroke, assimilates to theoria or contemplation- contemplation of the Ideas and, in the final phase, of God. Aristotle and Plotinus, the most eminent disciples of Plato, followed their master in seizing upon and espousing this intellectual ascent toward the highest being. All told, then, among its most dedicated followers and within the limits placed on sole human access, philosophic wisdom did espy its true source and principle. But one essential continued to elude it; for though this wisdom had discerned, however dimly, the path to God, it was and remained ignorant of the means to secure him effectively. In the Judeo-Christian revelation, contemplation of God is likewise the ultimate goal of wisdom, but there is a complete turnabout of perspective. No longer is wisdom to be attained from below as by mere human effort. It issues from above, from heaven. In short, it is salvation, bestowed by God at his pleasure and through his grace. Wisdom in this light is from its very inception something that exceeds philosophy, though even under the sovereignty of grace it is perfectly possible for an authentic philosophic wisdom to be constituted.
Squarely opposed, however, to the wisdom that is God's dispensation is that attitude which the gospel labels the wisdom "of this world," warning us against it. Basically, this consists in the refusal of the transcendent, of anything that is not authored by man himself. It betrays itself in the studied determination to administer all the affairs of the world along secularistic lines, with no thought to supramundane man and his wants. To the Christian this is, of course, no more than the pretense of wisdom, false and deceitful, like the ideals its professes.
b) In the foregoing paragraphs we spoke of wisdom from an historical aspect. Considering it doctrinally, or as to content, we find that St. Thomas together with Catholic theologians in general, acknowledges three possible forms of wisdom for the human soul, wisdoms which, though essentially different, are not opposed to each other but related in hierarchical fashion. They are: infused wisdom (gift of the Holy Ghost), theology, and metaphysics, which differ each from the other on two counts; for each has its special light of understanding and each its own formal object.
By infused wisdom the soul judges in the light of connatural knowledge, connatural by grace with God's knowledge; its foundation is the love that is charity (in the gospel sense), and its object is God as he is in himself but attained through a suprahuman mode of acting, or rather of being acted on. Theological wisdom is, like the preceding, under the rule of supernatural faith, and its object is also God as he is in himself; but its immediate foundation is revelation and not charity, and its mode of activity is essentially the human mode of reason. Metaphysics, on the other hand, is a purely human wisdom; its only light is natural reason, and though it also seeks to know God the supreme principle of things, it knows him only as inferred cause (hence indirectly), and not as he is in himself (as an object directly apprehended).
Christian thought knows of yet another meaning for wisdom when it uses the term to designate that essential attribute of God which is his substantial Wisdom and which the theology of the Blessed Trinity refers to the Person of the Son. This Wisdom, it should be noted, is the common origin of the three wisdoms spoken of above, which enlighten the human soul in ascending manner and measure; it is also, and for that very reason, the principle by which, in the last analysis, each finds itself in perfect accord with the other. Far from being opposed, therefore, the three wisdoms accessible to the Christian complement each other in perfect harmony, and for a man to be most truly wise is to grow unceasingly in all three of them; for each is a participation, one more perfect than the other, in that highest wisdom which is God's own measure and manifestation of the universe.
3. Wisdom, Science, and Understanding Having spoken, though but broadly, of wisdom as to its object or content, we have now to consider it from the standpoint of the subject, the person possessing it. Also brought up for review, by way of comparison, will be the allied notions of science and understanding. Taken in its subject, wisdom according to St. Thomas is a habitus or virtue of the intellect. Since any virtue is a perfection, this one is a perfection of intellect. And in what does this perfection consist? In making it possible for the intellect to perform its activity, or at least some part of its activity, with ease and exactitude.
Here a few words on the basic classification of virtues will be in order. According to Aristotelian doctrine human virtues are of two general kinds: moral virtues, which reside in and perfect the appetitive powers; and intellectual virtues, which reside in and perfect the intellect. Our present concern is with the intellectual virtues. Of these according to Aristotle,4 and St. Thomas agrees 5 there are five distinct species. Three of them - science, understanding, and wisdom - pertain to the speculative intellect; the other two - prudence and art - to the practical intellect. If, then, along with wisdom there are two other virtues (habitus) of the 3 Indeed, as the author suggests, not only does one philosophical system differ from another, but within the same system one branch may differ greatly from another in intention, in manner of demonstration, in degree of certitude attainable, etc. It is on these and similar counts that speculative philosophy, to take a broad example, differs from practical philosophy and that each of these divisions admits of differences within itself.-Translator's note. speculative intellect, namely science and understanding, in what do they differ?
The answer lies in the following considerations. The proper perfection of the speculative intellect is the true, which may, however, he attained in two ways: either as known in itself, immediately (per se notum), or as known in another, mediately (per aliud notum).
Keeping this distinction in mind, we go a step further. What is known in itself is by way of a principle (as against a conclusion) and, to repeat, is grasped immediately by the intellect. To this end the intellect is perfected by the virtue called intellectus or understanding.6 On the other hand, what is known in another is in the nature of a terminus (as against a principle or starting-point). Here again we find two possibilities. Either the truth that is known stands as term or conclusion of a particular branch of knowledge, in which case the intellect is perfected by the virtue called science; or the truth in question represents the ultimate term of all human knowledge, in which case the intellect is perfected by the virtue called wisdom.
Wisdom, accordingly, is a habitus (virtue or quality) which perfects the speculative intellect. But this does not yet distinguish it from the other speculative intellectual virtues, science and understanding. What is unique to wisdom is that it perfects the intellect in its quest of knowledge that is absolutely universal, the quest to proceed from principles and reasons which in their own order are ultimate or highest-"in their own order," because theological wisdom, for example, uses different principles and reasons from metaphysical wisdom. One important conclusion to be drawn from all this is the following. If science, as an intellectual virtue, pertains to a particular branch of knowledge and there are many such branches, or at least more than one, obviously there can be more than one intellectual virtue of science; but of wisdom, which judges of things universally, there can be but one virtue under the same formal light, be this reason, revelation, or divine infusion. Further questions, however, suggest themselves, to which we shall next give attention.
a) Is it correct to draw an irreducible distinction, as we have done, between wisdom on the one hand and science and understanding on the other? There are really two, if not three, questions involved here. For one, wisdom is said to explain things through their causes; but so does science, which in general is defined as knowledge through causes. Is wisdom, then, a science? The answer is yes, if we take science in the more general sense of knowledge through causes; no, if we apply the term strictly, which limits science to one of the intellectual virtues explained above.7 Secondly, for the knowledge of first principles St. Thomas, as we have seen, posits a separate virtue called intellectus, generally rendered "understanding." Is such a separate virtue necessary or justified, considering that the principles in question must also be known by science and wisdom, since all their reasoning is based on them. Nevertheless, the distinction between understanding on one side and science and wisdom on the other is not thereby erased; for they do not know the principles in exactly the same way. The virtue of understanding is reserved for the pure apprehension of the principles, no account taken of their application; whereas by science and wisdom the principles are apprehended in their relation to the truths which flow from and depend on them.s
But this answer casts up another doubt. If, in other words, the virtue of wisdom holds its basic principles from understanding, which grasps them in themselves, it would seem that wisdom is not, after all, the highest of the intellectual virtues. St. Thomas, in reply, notes that wisdom is in a privileged position as regards first principles; it not only knows and uses them, as does every science, but to it falls the higher function of evaluating and defending them against their critics. As knowledge of conclusions (rather than principles) wisdom resembles the intellectual virtue of science, yet is higher than science because its conclusions are of a higher order; whereas in declaring and defending, and not simply knowing, the first principles wisdom excels the mere habit of the principles, or understanding. Wisdom, in fine, is the highest intellectual virtue.9
b) Is wisdom purely speculative, or is it also practical? Generally speaking, the present tendency is to attribute both qualities to wisdom, namely, to regard it as at once speculative (knowledge for its own sake) and practical (knowledge regulating conduct). St. Thomas, for whom the matter is not quite so simple, answers as follows. Wisdom that is directly under the rule of faith is both speculative and practical; it establishes both the order of knowledge and the order of human activity. Such is the wisdom that is the gift of the Holy Ghost,lo Such, too, is supernatural theology, for though primarily speculative, it is also a practical science.ll Metaphysics, on the other hand, is by Aristotelian tradition placed among the purely speculative virtues. Indeed, Aristotle himself seldom if ever passes an opportunity to underscore its utterly disinterested character, always grouping it with physics and mathematics to form the triad of theoretical (i.e. speculative) sciences, which differ by their end from the practical sciences.12 Supreme theoretical wisdom of the natural order, metaphysics in short is a purely speculative, meaning contemplative, science-not, you remember, the virtue "science," but in the more general sense of knowledge through causes. c) The proper acts of wisdom. St. Thomas regularly refers two types of intellectual acts to wisdom, viz. to judge and to order. As he remarks on numerous occasions, ad sapientem pertinet iudicare et ordinare, "to the wise man does it belong to judge and to order." How are we to understand this judging and this ordering? The "judgment" in question, to speak of this first, is not just any kind but one that is enunciated by the intellect on the highest evidence, ultimately on the evidence of the supreme principles; it is a judgment of apical validity, a definitive determination of right order so final and authoritative that there is no going beyond it.
Similarly, while to order is in general to bring things in line with an end of one kind or another, in respect of wisdom this end can only mean the highest one of all. Consequently, for a wise man to order consists in referring all things back to God. In its full application, moreover, to order is not only to discover or to contemplate an existing order but also to create an order by will and other powers of action. Nevertheless, the mere intellectual consideration of an existing order may also, in a modified sense, be regarded as an "ordering," since this consideration, too, involves the act of putting things in order, albeit the order is made in and for the intellect alone. It is in this limited sense that we should understand the ordering activity of metaphysics, which, as we have seen, is a purely speculative science. But practical or speculative, true wisdom will reflect that ultimate judgment and ordering that is God's.
4. The Excellence of Wisdom For St. Thomas the excellence of a virtue is measured principally by the perfection of its object, of what comes within its proper purview. By this standard wisdom is clearly the most excellent of virtues, since it inquires of the highest of causes, which is God, and judges of all things in the light of this cause. In addition, because of its superior point of view-superior in virtue of its superior object-wisdom presides over the other intellectual virtues; these, accordingly, are subordinate to wisdom, falling as they do under its judgment and its power to order all thingsY St. Thomas, it may be mentioned, notes some doubt as to this subordination. Man, runs the objection, can have more perfect knowledge of things human than of things divine, wisdom being concerned with the latter. But the objection does not hold, at least for St. Thomas, who replies that it is worthier to acquire what little knowledge is possible of higher things than a whole lot of knowledge of lesser realities.14
Aristotle is of similar mind. Though in some respects he left the matter hovering, he was not unaware that first philosophy (metaphysics, hence wisdom) owes its excellence to the pre-eminence of its principles. He calls it, in fact, a divine science, having a divine object; but instead of its prerogative to judge and to order, he is more inclined to extol its privilege of being free and autonomous, existing, that is, for its own sake. "For just as we call that man free," he remarks, "who exists for his own sake and not for the sake of another, so this science, too, is the only one of all the sciences that is free, since it alone exists for its own sake. Hence also there is some ground for regarding its possession beyond human power." 15 In the highest sense of the word the wise man is thus a free man, with all the superiority this freedom confers.
But if wisdom makes a man free, it promises still more. What these further rewards are may be seen from this passage of St. Thomas, in which he praises the quest of wisdom:
Of all human pursuits, that of wisdom is the most perfect, the most sublime, the most profitable, the most delightful. It is the most perfect, since in proportion as a man devotes himself to the pursuit of wisdom, so much does he already share in true happiness, ... It is the most sublime because thereby especially does man approach to a likeness to God, who made all things in wisdom itself man is brought to the kingdom of immortality, ... It is the most delightful because her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness (Wis. 8:16).16
Doubtless, this encomium of the Angelic Doctor's, in which breathes his own enraptured soul, is not borne out in full except by wisdom founded on divine revelation; but measure for measure it finds fulfillment in metaphysical wisdom, too, the highest knowledge this side of revelation 17